Upfront, let me say, I’m not a runner. I’m not one of those lithe women with no body fat who seem to glide through marathon finish lines. But in my current quest to maintain my weight loss, I’ve taken up running - sort of. I spend most weekday mornings at Barry’s Bootcamp in Sherman Oaks. It’s an hour long workout program, a half an hour of which is running, and a half an hour of weight training.
And no, the running is not optional. After running day after day, I got the idea in my head that I could run a race. After all every Thursday, we run three miles in twenty-five minutes, and a 5K race is only 3.1 miles, so I was convinced that it could be done. In May, I ran the Revlon breast cancer race - and surprisingly, I wasn’t tired afterward.
Three miles was no problem - why not try five. It was both hard and easy. It was psychologically hard. I’d never run five miles in a row before. The first mile was good, less than nine minutes. At mile marker two it was only 18 minutes into the race. At mile marker three it was 28 minutes and I was feeling strong - then it hit. Whether it was muscle memory that’s used to getting off the treadmill at three miles or whether it was just too damn hot with little water, I don’t know, but I had to stop and walk much of mile four.
It was when I realized I only had one mile to go that I got my second wind. I’ve hit mile one before 5:30 most mornings. I could do it. I got my ass in gear and ran that last mile into the L.A. Coliseum, a cool finish line .
My time was about 54 minutes - about 11 minutes for each. I know I could have done better, but I’m glad that I did it nonetheless. And for your viewing pleasure, here’s me at the finish line.
